


A Second Chance

by gothamvillains



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Regret, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 03:32:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11500905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothamvillains/pseuds/gothamvillains
Summary: Oswald goes to visit Ed in the hospital after decideding to unthaw him, but there are some aftereffects from the ice that are threatening to complicate things while the future fate of their relationship hangs in the balence.





	A Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Not much to add here, but please be sure to read the notes at the end too because I could really use some help for future fics.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

All he had to do was open the door. Never mind what lied beyond it. He just needed to muster up enough strength to turn the handle and let the rest fall as it may.

Oswald gave a deep sigh, working to remove himself from the situation and realize how simple the task was when specifics weren't clouding everything in an overcomplicated mess of confusion. But tried as he might to look at the room as any other, all the reasons why he should leave and never turn back kept gnawing at his mind until, finally, his outstretched arm slowly began to lower and lower itself until he found it returning against his hip. Square one.

Ed would be better off. No matter which venture he pursued, no matter where he took his ambitions, Oswald had never been able to escape the underworld and the way it always managed, without fail, to drag him down into its cruel and unforgiving violence. It wouldn’t be fair to drag Ed down with him. Not when he was so close to escaping it.

"That’s ridiculous," Oswald snapped. Fair or not, that world was where Ed _belonged_. Besides, he knew the bond they had: knew that, whatever happened between them, there was no unraveling the way their lives intertwined. Time and time again, that proved to be the one thing that always remained true.

He had to go in.

All those months he had spent, watching, as the man behind the ice slowly started fading to become nothing more than a mere statue; all those tears he had wasted when it occurred to him just how hard it was getting to remember the look of his smile; all of the pain he had felt after finally giving in to his emotions and unthawing Ed only for him to be ripped away a short second later, and now he had the chance to see him again, talk to him again, hold him again, and he was letting a _door_ keep them apart. Not even death had done that, and it had come damn close.

He remembered how terrifying it had been to feel the way Ed trembled in his arms after the last bits of frost melted off of his face, knowing immediately that he needed medical attention if there was any hope of him surviving the night. Still, that terror ended up being nothing compared to the sense of helplessness that washed over him in waves as he gazed at the man he loved laying eerily still in that hospital bed, the medication bringing him deeper and deeper down into a coma. It had taken four days for Ed to become stable enough to start being brought out, another four until he had fully woken up, and a final six spent recovering before earlier that morning when he'd been officially allowed visitors again. Those whole two weeks had been some of the worst of Oswald's life, but no other moment compared to several hours ago and that eternity-lasting minute he’d spent gaping at the Caller ID read Gotham General as every chime of the phone instigated a feeling akin to being punched in the gut. Ed had been in such a critical condition before that Oswald was sure all it would take was the click of the receiver being picked up for him to find out that he'd lost Ed forever.

Of course, the call had ended up informing him of quite the opposite, but thinking about that made his hesitance to enter the room seem somehow more selfish now as he relayed back to that moment of dread when he thought Ed had really died. He would've been destroyed entirely if that had been the case. He would've grieved and wept and done anything for the chance that the real Oswald still had to reconcile and try to work things out.

No. There was no other choice. He needed to rip off the band-aid, even if it was being ripped off of a bullet hole. Having the chance shouldn't be something that's taken for granted.

Quickly summoning as much courage he could find before he lost his nerve again, Oswald gently opened the door, peeking his head inside the room first so as not to startle.

"Edward?"

At the sound of his name, Ed looked up from where he lied, reading a book, and slowly moved to close its cover in lieu of something far more compelling.

"May I come in?"

A hesitant nod issued in response, signaling Oswald to slip into the room as Ed raised himself into a sitting position.

Words failed now that moment had actually arrived, and, as Oswald took his seat on the edge of the bed, he found it was all that he could do to just stare, wondrously, at the person he still couldn’t believe was in front of him, staring back.

"Is everything alright?" Ed frowned, and Oswald seemed to snap out of a trance upon seeing the concerned look on his companion’s face. Ed was like a deer in the woods: wide-eyed, innocent, and skittish at the slightest hint of danger. This conversation would require a delicate hand.

"Yes, I—I’m fine. It’s just good to see you alive and breathing again."

"Again? You  _knew_ me?" Ed asked, repositioning himself with eager interest as his eyes filled with hope at what that prospect could mean if his theory was true.

"Better than anyone."

"So you can tell me things? About myself?" This seemed to be of comfort to him, and it occurred to Oswald that the doctors probably hadn’t been allowed to answer any of the questions he'd had after waking up unsure of his own name for fear that it might trigger him to remember everything and fall down the same dark hole.

"Sure. Whatever you want to know," Oswald shrugged. The staff might’ve been trying to take advantage of the situation to stop him from becoming a killer again, but Oswald wasn’t about to let them deprive Ed of reaching his full potential as the man he was inside. That man _was_ a killer, and conditioning him to believe otherwise while in such a defenseless state was only delaying the inevitable. Oswald would know—there were things _he_ was trying to keep hidden as well—but he knew enough to realize that, one way or another, the truth would eventually have its day. And that day had come.

"What happened to me?"

Oswald tried to maintain his composure and stop his being caught off guard from leading to a slipup that might threaten to ruin everything. There was an outcome to this whole ordeal that ended with Ed remembering who he was without them returning to their sworn vengeances. So long as he played his cards right, this could be a second chance for them both.

"Umm, it’s… complicated. They called me when you woke up on Monday to inform me of your condition and said that it was probably a good idea to just let you rest for a while. I spent those next few days trying to think of the best way to explain this all to you, but I’m still not entirely sure what that should be."

"Oh…"

Ed’s gaze shifted to the floor, clearly disappointed by this response.

Oswald leaned sideways, trying to meet his eyes again, read his face.

"Are you alright?"

"I… Sorry, what's your name?"

"Oswald."

" _Oswald_. The only people I've met since—well, I don’t even know what—happened are condescending nurses who seem like they’re only acting kind to me out of pity. You’re the first person who’s come to visit or give me any hope of learning about who I was, and I've only just met you. I mean, you could very well be a murderer for that all I know, but you’re also all that I _have_ , and, whatever it is you’re trying to tell me, please, just be honest."

Oswald swallowed, trying to keep calm for Ed's sake despite the thoughts raging wars inside of his mind.

"Of course..."

So, ten minutes later, there it was: every up, every down, every part of their tragic story told, laid out, and on the table, ending with Oswald unthawing him and calling for help.

Ed was speechless. He believed it all—there was too much raw pain imbedded in the retelling for him not to—but it was still a lot to take in, looking at this person whose face he had seen for the first time not 20 minutes ago now apparently having been one of the most prominent people of his life in both the best and worst ways.

Oswald sat, anxiously, hands fidgeting around the head of his cane, as he waited for some kind of response. He had tried his best to play the part of the impartial narrator and only describe the events as if they were facts being read from a history book, but it was next to impossible to stop emotion from seeping through.

"And that’s… everything?"

"Pretty much."

"... No."

"N— _No_?"

"You didn’t explain why, after nearly _eight_ months, you suddenly chose to bring me back."

Oswald nodded, clearing his throat, as he tried to come up with the best way to make Edward understand, but it was like trying to explain why people fell in love to begin with. "Choice" very rarely played a part in the equation.

"At first it was satisfying. You had been defeated, and I had been your undoing; I was rising back to power with an empire at my feet, and you were a prisoner who could never leave my side. And then the appeal began to fade. I stopped seeing you as a victory and only saw the ghost of something lost. It was torture, how I could look at you every day for as long as I wanted but still never be able to see you again. The thought of it made me sick."

"Why?"

"It's hard to describe. See—I... There was this one time when I was young and my mother came home _heartbroken_ because of some idiot who didn't deserve her. I decided then that I would never fall in love to spare myself the same grief, but, when I told her this, her face turned sad, and she said, 'A life without love is a life not lived, Oswald. It isn't without struggle, but, when the right person comes along, nothing else in the world compares.' So I asked her, 'But how will I know if they're the right person?' And she said, 'All you need to do is imagine feeling the greatest amount of pain that they could cause. Then imagine feeling just how happy and wonderful it could be in the most perfect of worlds, and decide if it is worth all of the potential pain to maybe get to that place.' And, when I thought about that with _you,_ I realized that it didn't need to be worth it. I don't care if we never get there, I just want you in my life. Even if it's only as an enemy."

"I see..." Ed replied. It was all he could say.

Oswald frowned, discouraged, but he had known going in that this was going to be a tough sell given the complexity of it all. Still, there had to be _some_ way to get Ed to understand.

"You don't remember this, but, back before we really knew each other, you had asked me if I believed in fate. I wouldn't have necessarily called it 'fate' at the time, just luck that I happened to run into some random stranger in the woods and they happened to be willing to not call the cops. Truth be told, I didn't believe. But I do now. Because it wasn't just some random stranger; it was _you_. What you did medically might've stopped me from dying, but it was your _compassion_ that kept me alive, and it was all because I had stolen your sandwich. I mean, that should've been the most insignificant thing I'd ever done, yet it ended up changing my life, and, no matter what happens between us, Ed, I would never want to go back to that day and not meet you. All the same power and control that I had when we were ruling the city together now leaves me feeling hollow and empty, and I've come to understand that it's because it was never the power that had made me feel so complete... So, that's the reason; that's why I broke you out. I realized it within the first week of your imprisonment, and, as hard as I tried, the feeling never eased. I missed you," he finished, giving a short laugh that's warmth alone would've been enough to melt the ice.

Ed rubbed his eyes, the removal of his glasses revealing how red and tired they still were after all that'd happened. His face also held the same ghostly pale color it'd been wearing since he was freed, and his hands continued to be bandaged around cases of frostbite that were making his fingers numb. But his lips weren't quite as blue, and his body wasn't shivering any longer, contentedly warm with just the one blanket. He was going to be fine. Now there was only the matter of what would happen next.

"I know you don't remember any of our fight, and I know that it must be hard to decide whether you can move past it or not when you're not even sure what it is we need to move past. So I will let you go, and I will let you take this time to figure things out, if that's what you need. But I hope that your memory comes back one day, and I hope that, when it does, you will understand everything I've told you and know that I meant it... Goodbye, Edward."

Oswald got up then, grabbing his cane as he made for the door.

He had done what he had came to do; he had said everything that he had wanted to say, and, even if those would end up being the last words he ever spoke to him, at least he could continue on knowing that he had left with nothing held back.

"Wait!"

He turned around just as he was about to go through the doorframe.

Ed looked like a gameshow contestant who had pushed the buzzer prematurely without having an answer in mind. At least now he had a chance to take a stab at the question instead of letting the opportunity pass completely: never knowing if he would've been correct, never knowing if he could've won.

"You can come back tomorrow... If you want."

Oswald's heart started racing as his mind rushed to hold it back from jumping to conclusions so quickly. He must not have heard him right.

"W—What?"

Ed swallowed, trying to get his brain and mouth on the same page, or, at the very least, same book.

"I... I would love it if you could come back and visit again tomorrow... _Please_ ," he added, sheepishly.

"Sure... Sure—Yeah, of course."

"Great," Ed smiled, and all of the thoughts Oswald had been scrambling to get ordered came to a standstill. So _that's_ what it looked like. It was captivating, comforting, and, in that moment, Oswald realized that he hadn't really forgotten Edward's smile after all.

"So... Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow..."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for taking the time to read this!
> 
> This is my first fanfic, but I'm very eager to write some more, so please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, critiques, advice, etc. or let me know of anything that you feel like I could've done better or could work on for next time. You can also reach me on Tumblr @/gothamvillains.
> 
> Thanks again!


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